


Not the end but the beginning

by LapfulofMisha



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-06
Updated: 2014-05-06
Packaged: 2018-01-23 18:01:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1574612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LapfulofMisha/pseuds/LapfulofMisha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how Captain America 2: The Winter Soldier SHOULD have ended<br/>(just my humble opinion)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not the end but the beginning

It’s an entirely new and unwelcome sensation, as if a red light is flashing in the back of his brain, telling him his orders are in conflict with what is _right_ , as if a part of him that’s been locked away for a long time is screaming that something about this whole operation _stinks_.

 Hesitation is not something he’s accustomed to.

 It’s not just what the target says.  Maybe it’s the color of the man’s eyes, or the smell of him, or the sound of his voice.  Something about him is triggering a reaction deep inside the Winter Soldier.

  _Your name is James Buchanan Barnes,_ he had told him, but that can’t be true.

 He doesn’t have a name.

He has an identity, though. He is the most feared assassin on the planet. His own _team_ fears him. He’s heard them talking when they thought he couldn’t hear. It makes him experience the closest thing he’s felt to a human emotion in a very long time: loneliness.

He looks down on the man he has dragged from the deep. He still doesn’t know why he did it. The red light/screaming voice pulses harder in the back of his mind, trying to shed light upon something never meant to see the light of day.

The man is bleeding from cuts in his face and gunshot wounds in his stomach. It occurs to him that he has failed at his mission, for the first time ever. Perhaps they will send someone else in to finish the job. They will almost certainly wipe away this little bit of his memory, or feeling of familiarity, or whatever it is that caused him to think twice, to react as a person, to show mercy to this man who called him  _Bucky_ .

He’s not sure why, but he knows he can’t allow this to happen. He knows time is short. They’ll be coming to retrieve him. He has to move them away from this place. Now.

He’s nothing if not resourceful. Like so many other places, he knows this city inside and out. He knows where to find safety, even safety from those who give the orders. He’s just never had a reason to run from them before.

He picks the target up from the ground where he’d left him, after dragging him from the water, and hoists him over his shoulder.  He absentmindedly flings the damp hair away from his eyes and looks around for threats, remembering the target’s last words as they bounce around in his mind, poking and prodding, feeding into that damned strobe-light-almost-memory in his mind.  _I’m with you till the end of the line._

The Winter Soldier does nothing without a purpose: he needs to interrogate this man and find out what he knows about his past. He’s not sure why this is of such all-consuming importance, but he trusts his instincts. They’ve kept him alive for a very, very long time.

He takes them to a crappy hotel in a back alley that’s littered with drug dealers and hookers. He flops down a couple of hundred dollars in front of the desk clerk, a balding man with a sweat stained t-shirt. The man barely looks up from the porn on his laptop as he takes the money and hands him a key card, no signature required, no questions asked.

The Winter Soldier has been thoroughly briefed on Captain America. He drops him onto the bed. He knows if he gets the bullets out of him, the man’s healing and regenerative powers will finish the job. He sterilizes one of his blades, strips off the man’s uniform, and carefully removes the bullets, wiping the blood away with a towel from the bathroom. It’s nothing he hasn’t done before on his own body. And then, when he’s finished, he just . . . looks.

The man’s body seems wrong, somehow, unfamiliar, and he doesn’t know how such a thought is even possible. He’s seen the intel, and Captain America looks exactly like the photos and medical records and newspaper clippings and video clips he’s looked at dozens of times. He shakes his head and walks across the faded carpet and moves the only chair in the room so it’s facing the bed before dropping into it.

Shortly after he gets him fixed up, Captain America regains consciousness.  _(His name is_ Rogers _, says the annoying pulse in his head.)_

_Rogers_ opens his eyes and stares at him with an expression he can’t decipher. Usually he sees fear, anger, shock; these things he is used to. But he’s certain no one has ever looked at him this way before. Like he’s . . .  _happy_ to see him. And, something more.

_Rogers_ groans uncomfortably as he sits up on the bed, still fixing him with that stare. Staring at him like he  _matters_ . It’s disconcerting as hell.

“What made you do it? Why did you save me?” The voice is familiar, quiet, calm.

“I need answers,” is the only reply he’s capable of.

Another incomprehensible emotion flickers across the target’s eyes, and is quickly hidden. “I’ll tell you anything I can, Bucky. I want to help.”

It occurs to him for the first time that he feels oddly naked without the mask, although there’s no need for it now. He hadn’t questioned their desire to hide his identity when they’d first pulled it over his face years ago. He was, after all, a high level assassin.

He questions their motives now.  About many things. Because this mission is so obviously  _wrong_ .

“Can you get me some water before we start, Buck?” asks Rogers, and damn but he doesn’t even  _hesitate_ . He’s not exactly in the habit of showing mercy to his prisoners. For that matter, he’s not even in the habit of  _taking_ prisoners.  There’s a foam cup wrapped in plastic on the bedside table. He unwraps it, goes and fills it with water in the bathroom sink (when did he start turning his back on marks jfc he’s going to  _die_ if he keeps this up) and gives it to Cap-  _Rogers_ .

Who has the audacity to grin up at him and say thanks.

He sits wearily but rigidly back down in the chair and stares, watching the way Rogers’ throat moves as he drinks the water, taking in the outrageously muscular form sitting on the bed. His own muscles ache and his uniform is hot and uncomfortable, and he’s tired in a way that has nothing to do with needing to sleep.

He doesn’t bother brushing the hair from his eyes, or wiping Rogers’ blood from his metal arm. “Tell me how you know me,” he says.

Rogers tells him. He talks about growing up in Brooklyn, and the fights he started that Bucky finished. He tells him the names of places they used to go together, and talks about all the people they knew, their friends, their families, their girlfriends, and finally, their closeness. He talks for hours, telling stories and looking at him with such . . . intensity, he guesses would be the right word, and he would never admit it even to himself but he hopes Rogers never stops talking.

He finds some of it hard to believe. Reconciling the monster he is now with the goddamn saint Rogers obviously thinks he is takes more imagination than he currently can muster. But he’s mesmerized. He can’t tell him to stop, he doesn’t want him to stop, he’s hungry for this like he’s never been hungry for anything before, and admittedly, that’s saying something.

But he does stop, and he slowly gets up from the bed and walks over to where the Winter Soldier is sitting, and he kneels before him, pushing his legs apart and getting right into his space. “I can help you remember, if you’ll let me.”

_Your name is James Buchanan Barnes._

He should be picking him up by the neck with his metal arm and throwing him across the room, but he doesn’t. Instead, he lets him get closer, and Rogers could kill him sixteen different ways with his bare hands, as vulnerable as he is right now, but he can’t seem to make himself care. His head is filled with the familiar smell of Rogers, and he can’t stop looking at his eyes, can’t understand why he’s looking at him the way he is.

Without saying a word, he slowly reaches up and gently brushes the hair from his eyes, and cups Bucky’s face. Then his lips brush softly up against his, and Bucky can’t help but pull back in shock, because it’s been seventy-odd years since someone has shown him affection, and Rogers  _smiles_ at him, gently tracing the contours of his face.

Bucky doesn’t dare move his hands, doesn’t dare touch.

“We were intimate, Buck.  Quite a lot, actually. It hurts like hell that you don’t remember, but none of this is your fault. And I think – I think you’re still in there, somewhere. I know you are, because I’m still breathing.” He grins.

“The person you talk about, he is a casualty of war.”

“I know. I’m responsible for his death.” The smile is gone. The amazing look in his eyes has been replaced with loss and hurt and self-loathing.

This Bucky understands.

“What is it that you want from me?”

“Another chance. A shot at getting to know you all over again. And not blowing it this time.” He moves in again and this time his reserve is gone, and he crushes down on Bucky’s mouth.

Bucky flinches, but he doesn’t pull away this time. He’s certainly been with people while he was the Winter Soldier, as part of missions. There’s been guys, and girls, and sometimes both at the same time, but it’s never meant anything.

He’s not sure why, but this needs to mean something.

He kisses back.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
